Developer Supermassive Video games actually made their mark on the horror sport panorama with 2015’s Till Daybreak, however the Darkish Footage Anthology actually introduced the warmth by providing gaming’s closest analog to Netflix’s Black Mirror collection. With the most recent installment on the best way, the builders have plans for an formidable return that lastly ventures into sci-fi horror whereas additionally placing gamers in additional direct management of the tense encounters that await the characters on this darkish story.
At Summer time Recreation Fest 2025, we acquired to play a very fateful encounter from the upcoming Directive 8020, which continues the Darkish Footage saga. We additionally noticed simply how the sci-fi horror journey sport mixes issues up with extra real-time gameplay encounters that convey the collection and its sturdy narrative hooks nearer to a real survival horror expertise.
Happening within the far future, the place Earth is on the breaking point, a crew of scientists and area colonists journey to a distant planet poised to develop into humanity’s subsequent house. However as you’d guess for a horror sport, the planet is house to a different malevolent entity, and the crew is pressured to outlive towards a mysterious alien presence that may mutate and take the type of any residing particular person on board their ship.
Actress Lashana Lynch – seen in The Day of the Jackal and Captain Marvel – leads the solid of characters because the pilot of the ship, and her early scenes in Directive 8020 make her such a compelling lead on this bleak story. The sport leans into comparable themes of paranoia, isolation, and worry of the unknown – which makes for a wonderful setup for a Darkish Footage sport. The builders have been significantly impressed by sci-fi movies like Occasion Horizon, Alien, and John Carpenter’s The Factor, which helped set up the fashion of horror and sense of dread that Directive 8020 goes for.
In accordance with sport director Will Doyle, who guided me by the SGF demo, Directive 8020 will nonetheless function lots of the hallmarks of a Darkish Footage expertise. Nonetheless, it would additionally mark the beginning of extra lively gameplay sequences and selections that intention to extend the worry issue inside this prolonged episode.
“I’ve had this concept for extra real-time threats in my thoughts for a very long time and all through season one of many Darkish Footage, and the primary purpose we needed to do it was to extend the worry issue for the video games,” stated the sport director. “There’s nothing extra scary than if you’re in direct management and the creatures are attempting to hunt you down and kill you. That will get your coronary heart pumping, and that was a big a part of our motivation. We additionally needed to broaden our viewers with extra partaking gameplay. It is nonetheless a cinematic, story-driven sport, nevertheless it does have moments the place you’re making these choices and actions with extra direct management.”
I acquired to see this real-time motion sequence throughout a narrative phase the place the Captain and one other crew member have been confronted by their alien impostors. Taking part in because the second crew member, the imposter mutates right into a grotesque monster, and I’ve to evade it from throughout the upkeep space of the ship. This performed out in a tense and unnerving stealth sequence that felt just like Useless House or Resident Evil, which lends Directive 8020 a traditional survival horror-like really feel. As it is a Darkish Footage sport, everlasting dying is a factor, and if I hadn’t gotten this character out away from his imposter, the primary story would have advanced otherwise.
Nevertheless, Directive 8020 heightens the sense of paranoia and rigidity when making fateful survival selections. Provided that Supermassive Video games’ pedigree of horror journey video games is about making choices to maintain a gaggle of survivors and mates alive to the top of the story – the added twist in Directive 8020’s story together with your crew being changed by alien imposters presents an unsettling wrinkle.
A fateful second occurred when the Captain returned to the crew and needed to determine the place to shoot a crew member who had seemingly are available contact with the alien entity. Very like the video games from the builders, these flashpoint moments are among the many most consequential factors within the story. With out gifting away spoilers, I decided that I’d come to remorse. Nonetheless, in accordance with the sport director, these moments may also be rolled again utilizing the turning level system – which acts as an elective story tracker and rewind system, permitting gamers to view completely different moments and select a unique path if they want.
Thus far, Directive 8020 is ready to be a welcome return to the Darkish Footage collection. And with the deal with giving gamers extra direct management of the motion whereas additionally heightening the sense of mistrust in your dwindling occasion of survivors, the following sport appears to supply one of many extra distinctive and game-changing episodes the collection has seen but.